


heavy hands, heavy hearts

by Willow_bird



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 4 + 1 things, Friendship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mary Hatford is Her Own Warning, Neil talks about his past, POV Alternating, The foxes react, Tumblr Prompt, protective foxes, protective friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26962126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow_bird/pseuds/Willow_bird
Summary: The Foxes slowly learn more about the convoluted, fucked up shit that Mary put Neil through.or: 4 times that the foxes realize that Neil was abused by his mom and the 1 time that Neil admits it.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 48
Kudos: 690
Collections: All For The Game random short stories





	heavy hands, heavy hearts

**Author's Note:**

> An alternate title: _Fuck you, Mary_
> 
> This started out as a tumblr prompt sent to me because of [this post](https://kiirynilcc.tumblr.com/post/631232440769396737/prompts-open), as I'm currently celebrating reaching 100 followers (yay! ily guys!). Most of these lil drabbles I'm just posting directly to tumblr because they're short - like under 1000 words. This one got a little bit out of hand... ^^; That being said, it was written entirely on my phone. My wrists hurt. Please forgive any typos or other mistakes.

**ONE: ALLISON**

Allison had been taking Neil shopping, which in itself wasn't really a weird occurrence. Allison would take any of her teammates shopping if that's what needed to happen to get them to stop looking like a dirty hobo. As it happened, Neil was just the worst offender and so she pestered him about it more often than not. It was remarkable how the guy could be dating the Monster and still look like that. Not that Andrew Minyard was a fashion icon or anything, but the miniature psychopath at least understood the concept of aesthetic and made sure the people around him wore things that actually _fit_. 

Well, most of the people around him. 

Point being, Neil needed a bit of extra help, and Allison was more than happy to supply it. So she'd taken to dragging him out shopping with her once a week. It was basically _therapy_ \- and fuck if that boy didn't need some of _that_.

(But Allison wasn't going to say that in front of Neil or he'd probably get hives…)

Usually, the shopping trips all went about the same. Allison would drag Neil along, Neil would acquiesce until he got hungry, then he'd get bitchy and after Allison fed him he'd calm the fuck down enough to try on more things before refusing to get anything. On a _very_ rare occasion she would get him to accept a shirt or a new pair of pants. His weakness was shoes, but she tries not to exploit that too often.

Today, however, was different - because today Allison caught Neil's eyes catching on a particular hoodie. If it had been just once she would have passed it off, but this was at least the fourth time Neil had sought it out in the whole ten minutes they'd been in the narrow clothing store and his eyes didn't just catch, they _lingered_ . Which meant that Neil was interested, that he _liked_ something. This was a _breakthrough_ ! Especially since the hoodie was new and had _color_ , rather than the drab shit he was always wearing. It was a very pretty cerulean blue with black stitching and was of a less bulky design than the other two Neil owned (one of which was the Foxes one she'd never seen him wear off-campus). In the proper size it would fit his frame nicely, she could tell just by looking at it, and she was low-key impressed that something with general style had been the thing to catch his eye. 

Allison grinned and nudged him. "Hey, just grab it. You could use a new hoodie."

Neil's attention snapped to her and Allison wasn't prepared for the flash of instinctive panic that raked through his eyes. "No, I didn't- I don't-" He raised his hands apologetically, which was _weird_ , then seemed to catch himself and dropped them immediately. Allison could _see_ him struggling not to look over at the sweatshirt and for the life of her she didn't understand why. But now she _needed_ to know.

She gave him a look. "Uh, yes you did, and you do. What's the big deal? So what, you like it. Get it." She shrugged, hoping nonchalance would encourage him to stop being a weirdo about it.

"Nah," Neil said with a shrug. "It's fine. I've got hoodies."

Allison thought about letting it go, she really did, but she was too curious. But she also knew that the more she seemed to care about the answer she was prodding for, the less likely Neil was going to give it. So she pretended to look at some of the surrounding clothing without really registering what she was shuffling through. "You act like you've never bought something just because you wanted it before," she said with her usual level of scathing judgement.

"It was too dangerous," came Neil's distracted response. When Allison peaked over at him, her hand freezing on the shoulder of a sweater, about to slide it down the rack, she saw that he was looking at the hoodie again, studying it with a too-careful blankness she was beginning to recognize as Neil-in-memory.

"Getting something you wanted was too dangerous?" It was harder this time to keep her tone casual but she managed it well enough that Neil didn't fully snap out of his thoughts, wherever they were.

He shrugged. "It was distracting. If you had things you cared about you'd lose sight of survival, or make stupid mistakes."

Allison just stared at him. "You weren't allowed to have things you wanted… because they'd be _distracting?_ Neil that's really fucked up." 

Neil looked over at her and grimaced, pulling away from the hoodie. "Whatever, it's not a big deal. Come on, are you done shopping yet?"

For another moment Allison stared, then she stalked forward and violently grabbed the hoodie from the rack, ignoring Neil's startled protests. 

"No," she said, pointing at him with her free hand. "You aren't some kid on the run anymore and you don't have to follow your mom's fucked up rules. If you want something, you're going to get it, damn it." If Neil tried to protest again she didn't see it because she'd already whirled around to head up toward the checkout.

_Fuck you, Mary._

**TWO: DAN**

Team Night was something Dan instated right after finals last year. One night a week they all got dinner after practice. The whole team had to be there for at least part of the time. Sometimes they got along, sometimes they fought like half-crazed rabbis raccoons, but they were all _together_ in a situation that wasn't about exy (no matter how many times Kevin or Neil brought it up). If there was anything Dan had learned over her years as Team Captain, it was that they would always operate better on the court if they could also work together off of it.

Tonight they'd gone out to dinner with the whole team before splitting off into various groups back at the dorms. Renee had gone off with Allison and Nicky while Aaron had left right from the restaurant to meet up with Katelyn. The freshmen had split into their own groups - they were still working out their hierarchy among themselves and Dan knew by now that she just had to let it happen - which had left her and Matt and, surprisingly enough, Neil and Andrew. She hadn't really expected the other two to accept her invitation to join them in Matt's room for a movie, but when she's offered Neil had easily agreed and Andrew hadn't protested. 

A part of her had still expected Andrew to peel off and go back to his own dorm once they'd returned to Fox Tower, but the reticent goalkeeper had followed them all into the room with no complaint.

"All right!" Matt announced with a grin once the door was shut and locked behind them, crossing to where he kept the booze. "Power Couple Movie Night! Whatcha guys want? Babe?"

Dan chuckled and rolled her eyes affectionately. "You're ridiculous and I love you. I'll have a whisky sour." She looked to Andrew and Neil. "What about you guys? He just stocked up so there's a bit of everything."

"Babe, you're making me sound like an alcoholic." 

Dan dismissed the complaint with a wave of her hand and smiled over at the other two. 

"Whisky straight." That was Andrew.

Neil just shrugged. "I don't need anything," he said.

"Do you have Dr. Pepper?" Andrew asked, apparently not done.

Matt nodded, lifting a mostly-full two-liter for him to see and setting it on the surface of the cabinet. 

"He'll have that with amaretto."

"Andrew."

"Neil."

Dan tried not to be too obvious about how closely she was watching them. It wasn't even a 'how could they be together?' thing. It was just that… Neil was this big mystery, and Andrew was _also_ a big mystery. And now they were together and that just made the mystery balloon exponentially. The two of them _fit_ together in a way that was somehow both surprising and like nothing in the world could make more sense. They had a whole language together of looks and gestures, of silent understandings that the rest of them couldn't even begin to interpret. In a way, this was just like any other couple. Even now, Dan shot a glance over at Matt and they shared a _look_ of their own before resuming their subtle observations of the other couple. Somehow it was different with Andrew and Neil though. Somehow it seemed… heavier. It was fascinating and also kinda unsettling, which only made Dan want to figure it out even more.

After an extended silence where Neil and Andrew had some indecipherable conversation with their eyes alone, Neil sighed, apparently conceding defeat, and nodded agreement to his boyfriend's drink order. 

"All right! Neilio is drinking with us _tonight!_ " Matt pumped a fist into the air, shattering the residual tension with his enthusiasm. Dan had probably never loved anyone so much in her life.

Neil smirked his own affection for the big lug and flopped onto the couch, Andrew following with less flourish but a level of relaxed comfort that made Dan's heart soar. _It was really happening_. Andrew was letting himself trust them, letting himself be a part of the team, letting himself be… one of their friends.

Matt finished making their drinks and brought them over on a serving tray he had been a little bit _too_ excited to buy.

Neil took his drink and cautiously sniffed it, wrinkling his nose. "It smells sweet," he complained.

"You have two choices when it comes to liquor, Josten. It either tastes sweet or it tastes like alcohol." Andrew was entirely unsympathetic, though his gaze remained focused on Neil even as he sipped his whisky. Apparently, this was some either-or that Neil was willing to concede to because he sighed and sipped the drink. After a moment he hummed and took another sip. Another sip turned into a second drink as the four of them collectively decided to skip the movie and instead hang out and _talk_ about the worst movies they'd ever seen. Andrew, surprisingly, had a lot to contribute - as he had apparently seen a lot of movies and had Opinions about all of them. It was very weird and kinda surreal, but also made Dan feel almost _giddy_.

"Well shit, Neil, if it was just a matter of you not liking the taste of alcohol we'd have stocked up on wine coolers ages ago," Matt said as he handed Neil his third glass later on in the night. He grinned and perched on the armrest of her chair. Dan smiled up at him when he put his arm around her, leaning against him and sipping her own drink as she turned her attention back to the other couple.

 _The other couple_. Well, that was weird.

"Nah, I still wouldn't have had anything," Neil said after another, fuller drink. He leaned back, comfortable. Dan noticed that he and Andrew weren't touching but there was still a weird intimacy with their proximity. It hurt her brain to think about so she didn't focus on it overmuch. Then Neil said, "Mom only brought out the alcohol when I needed to be stitched up," and Dan froze with her drink halfway back up to her mouth. Neil didn't seem to notice, looking into his cup as he continued. "No hospitals, you know, and when I was a kid I always cried a lot and was really loud about it unless I was too drunk to feel anything at all."

_And when I was a kid I always cried a lot and was really loud unless I was too drunk to feel anything at all._

_When I was a kid…_

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Dan peripherally noticed that she wasn't the only one who had gone still. It was _so rare_ for Neil to say anything about his time before he joined the Foxes. It was even _more_ rare for him to bring up his mother - especially in such a… disturbingly revealing way. 

Matt was the one to break the silence. "When you say you were a kid you mean…?" There was a false lightness in his voice, like he was trying not to alert Neil to how much he was revealing. Andrew cut him a glare but then looked to Neil without interrupting.

Neil shrugged, swirling his glass lightly, apparently fascinated with the ice as it clinked gently against the sides of the glass. He poked at them with his mixing straw. "Mm, Lola scared me, y'know? I didn't want her to stitch me up. So I begged mum. Dad would hurt her too if she couldn't keep me quiet. I tried, but being noisy was always a problem for me. 's how I usually got in trouble anyhow. Or by not being still enough. Or dropping knives." Neil shivered, his free hand rubbing against a spot on his abdomen like he was worrying away at a memory, some phantom ache from a past that he could never quiet escape from.

Andrew, apparently, had decided this was enough. He reached forward and pulled the glass from Neil's hand with a gentleness that shouldn't surprise Dan anymore. He set the glass on the table and stood, then tugged Neil up with him. He didn't let go of the striker's hand even when he got the other man standing. Once he was sure the other would be steady he glanced over at them with a dark, steady threat in his eyes. "We are leaving now."

A sound beside her alerted Dan to the beginning of Matt's protest and she elbowed him before he could complete it. In its place, she gave a strained smile and nodded. "Of course. You guys are probably tired. See you tomorrow!"

Neil raised his hand in a small wave but he still seemed a little lost, his expression closed, his mind somewhere else. 

When the door closed behind them, Matt stood up and walked over to lock it, then he stood there for a moment before turning to face her. His expression was dark and angry and echoed the storm stirring in his own heart.

"Neil went on the run when he was ten."

It might have seemed a random statement, but Dan was following the same line of thought and she nodded. They'd known that Neil's dad was a bastard, knew he'd been hurt by him and his people when they'd been on the run and it wasn't a far toss to infer that he'd been hurt earlier too. But this confirmation was blood-chilling. Mary's part in it was not comforting.

"She did nothing, Dan. She did _nothing_ . She let him get hurt and then she got him drunk as a little _fucking kid_ to stitch him up again. I know it was a fucked up situation, and I'm sure it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows for her but _fuck_ Dan. _Fuck_."

Dan nodded, setting down her drink and rising from the chair so she could go to Matt. She knew that she only had a surface understanding of the situation. She couldn't imagine what Mary might have gone through herself, but she couldn't find enough compassion in her heart to make excuses for her. Maybe that made her heartless, she didn't fucking care. What she cared about was that Mary let her own son be hurt badly enough that he needed to _get drunk_ and _get stitched up_ over and over again, before and after they went on the run. What she cared about was that Mary hurt her son over and over herself in order to control him, to keep him under her thumb. Maybe she did it because that's how she thought she was protecting him but intentions meant _shit_.

Lesser evils _were still evil_.

There are always choices, always options, and Mary's choices had traumatized Neil just as much as the Butcher's had. Maybe Neil had complicated feelings about his mother but Dan didn't. She had a very clear opinion, actually.

_Fuck you, Mary._

**THREE: MATT**

"Okay so, but why Andrew?" Matt didn't mean anything _negative_ with the question, but he flipped a hand in apology when Neil glared over at him. "I didn't mean it that way. I mean like -- is your type short, blond, and stabby or…?"

"I don't have a type. I don't swing."

Well that made no sense.

"Except for Andrew," Matt clarified, reminding Neil that he was self-admittedly committed to the Monster.

Neil nodded without hesitation. "Except for Andrew," he agreed.

"Right… but… _why?_ Why only Andrew? Didn't you _ever_ like… _like_ other guys, or girls?" Matt studied his best friend, desperate to understand him. He wasn't even being anti-Andrew about this, he was just trying to learn more about Neil and this integral part of him. Neil said he didn't swing, and then of all people to fall for - he falls for Andrew. Matt had thought that maybe Neil had been shy about admitting he was gay or something, but Neil was pretty confident about the whole not-swinging thing. Matt got that there were other sexualities out there, but the idea of just… not wanting _anything_ just didn't make sense to him.

He was surprised when Neil actually said -- "Sure, yeah, when I was like, fourteen or whatever. I wouldn't say I _liked_ anyone, but I _noticed_ girls."

Matt blinked and looked over at him, letting the game controller rest on his lap. "Wait, you did?"

Neil shrugged. "Yeah, but it wasn't allowed so…"

"It wasn't… _allowed?"_ Matt frowned, lost.

"My mom knew they'd be a distraction, that it was too dangerous for me to fall for someone. I don't think it occurred to her that I might like a guy, so when she realized I was noticing girls she made sure I didn't anymore."

Matt was silent for a long moment, letting the implication of that sink in. "When you said she 'made sure' you didn't notice girls…?"

Neil shrugged. "I was stupid. Just telling me wasn't going to do anything." But his friend's casual nonchalance was gone and Matt watched as the other man withdrew into himself. His expression closed down and he scratched his nails through his hair, against his scalp in an anxious tick Matt was pretty sure Neil didn't even realize he did.

A flare of rage heated his lungs and it took concentrated effort to swallow it down. He could imagine what _Mary_ might have done to her son to drill the lesson home. 

"That's really fucked up, Neil."

Neil just shrugged, then nodded at the tv. "Are you gonna play or what?" Matt could see that his friend didn't want to talk about it so he let it go, but he wasn't going to forget it.

"Yeah. How about you order some pizza or something? I'm getting fucking hungry." A bit of the tension broke and Neil flashed him a small smile before pushing off the couch to go get his phone to make the order. Matt watched him go and took another breath to make sure his anger was packed away for later.

 _Fuck you, Mary_.

**FOUR: NICKY**

Christmas! Nicky was so fucking excited about Christmas this year. Not only would Erik be coming into town, but the _whole family_ would be there! Well, the family that _mattered_ anyway. Aaron was bringing Katelyn, Andrew would be there and _participating_ , and Neil was staying with them for the entirety of winter break. It was going to be _amazing!!_

Already, in the few days since school had let out, Nicky had set about Christmas-ifying the whole house and it was looking _amazing_ if he did say so himself, which he did.

Today was going to be particularly exciting because he had managed to get Neil to agree to go Christmas shopping with him. Erik would be arriving tomorrow morning and Nicky still hadn't gotten his present. Or Aaron's. Or Andrew's. Or Neil's… He'd gotten Katelyn's though! He'd seen an absolutely gorgeous sweater at the mall the other week in just her color so he'd swiped it up. Point being, he had some catching up to do and he suspected that Neil was also behind on his Christmas shopping.

This was confirmed shortly after they arrived at the mall and Nicky asked Neil what he'd gotten for Andrew.

Neil blinked at him, like he was caught off guard by the question. 

"I don't think we're getting each other anything," he said, looking downright _confused_.

"Oh. Oh _Neil_ . Oh Neil _no_. No, you are definitely getting gifts for each other. You're a couple!"

Neil looked vaguely uncomfortable as he shrugged, but he didn't deny the label and Nicky counted that as progress. "I don't think we're the gift-giving kind…"

Clearly, Neil hadn't been paying attention to the fact that Andrew had been gifting Neil at every fucking opportunity since they'd _met_ . Clothes, keys, food, drinks, more clothes, a phone. At first, Nicky had just thought it was Andrew being possessive in the way he was possessive of all the people he'd decided we're _his_ . It wasn't until after the two had come clean about their relationship ( _relationship!!!)_ that Nicky had thought back and realized that Andrew wasn't _half_ as generous with the rest of them. Honestly, Nicky was a bit embarrassed for not noticing it all sooner. This whole time, Nicky thought he was being cryptic when he was just being really, _really_ gay. For shame.

"Mm, well," Nicky hedged, feeling pity for the poor blind idiot. At least he was cute. "You're wrong, but we won't get into it. Just trust me when I say that Andrew has _definitely_ gotten you something." Probably multiple things, actually, but Nicky didn't want to shock the poor cute dummy. "And you can't tell me that you _don't_ want to give him a gift." Nicky stopped, frowning at Neil in disapproval.

"It's not that," Neil admitted, and Nicky wasn't sure he'd ever seen the younger man look more awkward. 

"Then what is it. Come on, kid, tell Uncle Nicky."

Neil made a face. "Only if you _never_ say that again."

Nicky laughed, though he realized Neil had a point. That _might_ have been a bit much. "Deal. So what is it?"

Neil shrugged, fidgeting in a restless way that Nicky recognized as one of Neil's tells when he was uncertain or nervous. Neil was someone who needed to be in motion, someone who needed to _do_ things. Nicky related to that, heavily, so he linked his arm through Neil's and tugged him into walking again. The motion seemed to help, and after a few minutes, Neil finally spoke up.

"I've never really done the whole Christmas or birthday thing. Especially not since me and my mom, you know…" He drifted off vaguely, gesturing with one hand like that's was supposed to indicate all the time he and his mom were running from his psycho dad and his evil butcher-buddy minions. Nicky nodded like it had and Neil continued. "It just feels… _weird_ , you know. Like it's a thing that real people do. They go to school and they have holidays with families that don't want to kill them or each other. They buy each other presents that they don't need and that's… _normal_. But it just doesn't make sense to me."

There was _a lot_ to unpack there, but Nicky's mind caught on the first thing Neil had said and it kept replaying over and over on his head like a skipping record.

_Like it's a thing that real people do._

Like Neil wasn't… _real._

Nicky stopped walking again, his heart clenching suddenly in his chest. "Wait, hold on. Rewind. Neil, you realize that _you_ are a real person, right?"

Tension wiped Neil's face into an awful blankness and normally Nicky would let it go. He'd make a joke and try and get them back to something lighter, but this was… something was just _so wrong_ about that and he couldn't ignore it.

"Neil," he implored, hands on both the younger man's shoulders, gripping tightly, _willing_ him to open up to him.

Maybe it was a testament to the season of sharing, or maybe it was proof that he and Neil had come a _long_ way since those first few months over a year ago, but for whatever reason, Neil didn't brush him off and he didn't pull away. Instead, he sighed and gave a small shrug, shuffling his feet as he apparently searched for the right words like they were hidden between his shoelaces.

"I didn't feel real for a long time, you know. I couldn't be. Mom was the one who made all the identities for me, the one who chose the names and the covers. She was the one who created everything about the boys I was supposed to be, down to their interests in school and outside of it, just in case someone asked me when she wasn't around. She'd test me on them. I studied those boys with more dedication than I studied for my classes when I was actually in school."

Nicky frowned, confused. "What about _your_ interests and what _you_ were like."

Neil shrugged. "I didn't have any. I wasn't like anything, unless you can count fear as a personality trait."

That… didn't make sense. Neil was saying words, and individually, Nicky knew what they meant, but his brain was struggling to comprehend exactly what they meant when put together in that order. 

"But… that's not possible. What about when you saw something you liked, or wanted, or did something that you just… _enjoyed_ . A tv show or, fuck, math. You like math right? That's a part of your personality." He heard the desperation in his own voice but he was too distracted by the conundrum of Neil's ' _I wasn't a real person_ 's reveal that he didn't even care to attempt to rein it in.

"Not until I got to Palmetto," Neil admitted. "I didn't have to take a math class my senior year because my forged transcripts already had the required number of classes to graduate and it seemed conspicuous to take more than that. Your average teenager doesn't like math."

"But you thought about it, right? When you were signing up for classes, you thought about adding math, then _actively_ chose not to." A picture of understanding was beginning to form and Nicky felt a little bit sick with what it showed.

Neil frowned, like he was thinking about it, then gave a small nod of reluctant agreement.

"So… there was something you liked, something that was _you_ and you just, what, instinctively went ' _No, bad idea'_. Why?"

"It's what my mom would have done," was Neil's instant, confident reply. He hadn't even had to think about that one. Then, to Nicky's horror, he elaborated with, "Mom was a stickler on that kind of stuff. If I liked something, if I felt pulled to anything, it was dangerous and bad. I learned quickly enough to avoid anything that interested me so it wouldn't distract me. Surviving was what was important."

Yeah. Yeah Nicky _definitely_ felt a bit sick now. 

"When you say that you 'learned quickly enough'...?" Nicky wasn't sure he actually wanted to know, but that didn't stop him from asking the question.

"Mom--" Neil actively stopped himself this time. "It isn't important. Look… are we going to go shopping or what?"

Nicky wasn't willing to let it go. "Neil. Did she… like, _hurt_ you? For having _interests_?"

Now Neil looked more than just _a little_ uncomfortable, and the way he didn't meet Nicky's eyes was all the answer he needed. Nicky wanted to hug Neil just then, but he managed, at the last second, to hold himself back. He'd probably pushed harder than he should have already and he was trying to be better about boundaries. Instead he squeezes his shoulders and then pulled his hands away.

"Well, come on. Let's finish shopping. I'll help you pick out something for Andrew if you aren't sure what to get him." 

Neil looked so visibly relieved that Nicky's heart broke. "Ah, yeah… thanks Nicky." The small smile he shot him was enough that Nicky forgot the boundary thing and just _hugged_ him. Ugh, that poor kid. No wonder he was so confused whenever anyone was _k_ ind to him if his own _mother_ had treated him like he wasn't even a real person to the point where Neil had legitimately started to believe it. Nicky had his issues with his parents, all the Foxes did -- it was part of what made them _Foxes_ \-- but this was kind of another level.

Nicky kept his arm around Neil's shoulders as he lead the younger man off to shop, now determined to make this the best fucking Christmas _ever._ Because Neil was a real fucking person and he deserved that frivolous normalcy. He deserved to _like_ things and to _want_ things.

_Fuck you, Mary._

**+1: AARON**

Aaron didn't usually care about whatever was happening in Josten's weird little brain. It wasn't a place he was eager to explore, to be perfectly fucking honest, and he was unfortunate enough to be subjected with the assshole's proximity often enough as it was. However, it was hard to ignore the man when he was having a literal mental breakdown right in front of him. He wished he could. He wished he could turn around and walk away, shut the door, and go back to _not caring_. Unfortunately, parallels had just been drawn that he couldn't unsee and now turning his back on Neil almost felt personal. It was incredibly uncomfortable and for a long moment Aaron just sat there, silent, in the wake of what just happened.

It had gone like this:

Andrew and Neil had been on separate ends of the couch doing homework. Nicky and Kevin were still sleeping off the trip to Eden's Twilight last night, and Aaron was slowly letting himself wake up to a hot cup of coffee and some random show on tv. Then that random show had transitioned into some kind of true crime show that had dragged everyone's attention to the screen with a single word.

 _Wesninski_.

As it turned out, the show wasn't actually about the Wesninskis, but rather about crime in Europe. The Wesninski mention was due to the current segment on the Hatfords, a British crime syndicate -- the one Neil's mother hailed from. It was _her_ picture on the screen when their collective attention all snapped to the screen, and the tension in the room suddenly increased tenfold.

Mothers were a bit of a complicated topic for everyone in the room. It was also probably the one thing that Andrew was unwilling to touch with a ten-foot pole, not even for Neil - and Aaron was long since past denying that those two had something going on far deeper than sexual tension and a disdain for ninety percent of humanity. 

So the room had frozen, holding a breath with a shared lung. Then Andrew had stood, moving to snatch up the remote so he could turn off the TV when Neil said, "No."

Aaron had never seen Andrew stop so fast in his life. His twin's face remained blank, but there was a darkness in his eyes that Aaron was queasily familiar with. It was a cruel, angry darkness and he didn't envy Neil for being the subject of it as Andrew turned his gaze on the striker. 

"If you want to cry over that bitch I am not going to stick around to suffer it." The words came out low and hissed and even Aaron could hear the sharp rage beneath the forced facade of indifference Andrew was attempting to keep in place.

Neil looked like he wanted to hit Andrew but he managed to keep his response to a sharp, venomous, " _Fuck you."_

Andrew held the remote up to eye level then dropped it. It landed hard enough on the table that it bounced off, the back popping off and the batteries scattering. Then he was striding out the front door. Aaron expected it to slam, but somehow the gentle click of it just under the murmur of the crime show was just as finite.

It was like getting to watch a moment he'd lived over and over again over the course of _years_ from the outside for the first time. In fact, it wasn't _like_ that - that's what it _was_ . Something anxious and sick curled in the pit of his stomach as Aaron looked from the closed door to Neil's tense, shaken form. He hated this. He hated sympathising with Neil. He _hated_ understanding Andrew's anger. He hated not being able to pick a side. Aaron had heard enough about Mary Hatford to know that she was just as fucked up as Nathan Wesninski, dragging her son around, forcing him into isolation, beating him, fucking him over socially for his whole damn life when she probably could have just saved them both by either going straight to the FBI or calling up her own crime family. He knew that Neil didn't blame his mom when he probably should. He knew he made excuses, that he grieved for her. He knew he _missed_ her and he also knew that it was really, _supremely_ fucked up.

He also knew that he was just as guilty for the unworthy idolization of an abuser. It had taken him _years_ to get to the point where he was willing to admit that, though. It was meeting Katelyn that had him finally looking at his past with a sobering dose of reality. It was only after months of wrestling with himself that he'd finally been able to accept the truth. Months of Katelyn's steadfast support, months of sessions with Bee beyond the joint sessions with Andrew, months of introspection that left him mentally and emotionally wrung dry -- and Tilda hadn't had _half_ the physical and emotional ammo that Mary Hatford had probably levied against her young son.

Aaron watched Neil vibrate in place, watched his hands curl and his throat work, watched the pain and the rage and the grief flash through his eyes even as he tried to swallow it all down. He watched Neil, but he saw himself, and it was more than disconcerting.

He didn't make the conscious decision to speak before he said, "I get it." In fact, he almost didn't realize he _had_ spoken until Neil snapped his attention over to him like he'd forgotten he was still in the room at all.

Neil didn't respond, probably too caught up with the war in his own head to form words -- a rarity for the loud-mouthed striker.

"She was all you had," Aaron said, and he wasn't sure if he was actually talking to _Neil_ , or talking to the version of himself that still clung to the corner of his memories, desperate to validate the only person that might have loved him, the one person that _should_ have loved him, when he needed it the most. "She was all you had, and that's what kept you going. Not her rules and not whatever it was that she did to make sure you survived. That it was her and you, that you had each other, and that that _meant_ something. She'd do whatever it took to protect you, she was the only one who would do that, and it was everything, right?"

He could tell by the widening of Neil's eyes that he'd hit the nail on the head. He didn't look away as he continued with his truths, knowing he was probably the only person that had ever vocalized an understanding -- that he was probably the only person who _could_ understand. 

"And then she was gone. And it wasn't only _her_ that died. It was everything that she was _supposed_ to be. She died, and all you had left were the ' _almost's_ and ' _not enough's_ and the ' _never again_ 's. And if you let yourself believe that she was just as bad then everything was for nothing. All the times _you_ cared. All the times _yo_ u tried. All the times you did _everything you could_ to be what she expected of you. None of it would matter, because she was gone, and she could never redeem herself, and it was all pointless." Aaron heard his voice like someone else was speaking. It was too calm, too quiet, too knowing. It didn't feel the desert in his chest, scorching and dry and far too exposed. He saw Neil's reaction like he was looking in a mirror and it was more than a little bit unsettling. He _understood_ the flash of anger in his eyes, the stubborn refusal in the set of his jaw, then the reluctant acceptance when his shoulders dropped. Aaron _hated_ understanding _anything_ about Neil Josten. He hated even more that it was _this_ that they had to share. Something so raw, so close to home it had a permanent home inside his chest, nestled between his lungs. It wasn't _fair._

Then again, he was a Fox for a reason he guessed. Life just wasn't fucking fair to a _Fox._

Neil looked away, then deflated against his corner of the couch. He tilted his head back and Aaron saw his throat work as he fought emotions neither of them wanted Aaron to be a witness to. Aaron averted his eyes. He only looked up again when Neil spoke. The other man's voice was quiet but steady.

"The one thing she harped on most, more than anything else, was how attachments to anyone or anything other than my own survival were going to get me killed. Even to her. She told me so many times to run, leave her behind, but I… I never could. She never left me behind, even when there were times when I wanted her to. She'd probably be rolling in her grave if she could see me now…" Neil's voice drifted off as his gaze locked on the front door over Aaron's shoulder. Aaron didn't need to be psychic to know that he was thinking specifically about Andrew, about how much he'd risked for Andrew - not just to be _with_ him, but also to _protect_ him. Going to Evermore, allowing Nathan's men to take him quietly… yeah, Mary probably wouldn't be too happy about that, and not in the caring, not wanting Neil hurt way. She'd be pissed that Neil cared about something so much to take that risk, after all she'd done to try and beat that ability out of him.

"She was trying to make me soulless," Neil said without taking his eyes away from the door. "She hated it so much whenever I showed any glimmer of a personality. Whenever I was anything other than a possession she kept and controlled. My mother loved me, in her own way…" His mouth tensed, pursed, then he looked at Aaron.

For a moment, the two of them just looked at each other, a shared understanding between them.

"That's not enough," Aaron finally said.

Neil looked down, then up, meeting his eyes. "No," he agreed, "it's not."

On the tv, the show was still talking about the Hatfords. Not all that much time had actually passed since the segment started. Neil looked at the tv, then stood and gathered up the scattered pieces of the remote. He put it back together and spared one more glance at the screen, which now showed a picture of the Hatford family at some event when Mary and her brothers were teenagers. Then he lifted the remote and resolutely changed the channel.

"I'm going to take the car to pick up some food, you want anything?" Neil asked as he moved to get his shoes, then take his keys from the hook near the door.

Aaron snorted. "No. I'll order something if I get hungry." There was still some time until he'd want lunch, but he knew this dance by now. Neil and Andrew would drive off together. If he wanted food he was better off taking it into his own hands. It was entirely likely the other two wouldn't be back until closer to dinner.

Neil nodded once, then was out the door. Aaron watched him go, then sighed and turned back to his coffee, considering it.

He didn't like sharing something with Neil fucking Josten. It was annoying and uncomfortable. But all the same… he understood. And like it or not, they were tied together now. Maybe he wasn't ready to say ' _fuck you_ ' to the memory of his own mother, and Neil _definitely_ wasn't ready to do the same regarding Mary Hatford, but they could acknowledge the similarities in their stories and that was a start -- for both of them.

Aaron sighed and closed his eyes. He pointedly didn't think about his own mother and instead let himself eagerly latch onto the other man's sympathetic demon as he thought, with vehemence, _'Fuck you, Mary.'_


End file.
